The invention concerns more particularly, but not exclusively, a light of the fog type.
A light is known equipped with a reflector whose surface is determined so as to provide the beam with cut-off, that is to say the light rays of the reflected beam are situated essentially below a cut-off line, which may be horizontal or which may be formed by a broken line in the case of a dipped headlight. The light source used is fairly powerful so that the portion of the light emitted towards the rear in the direction of the reflector suffices to produce the required light beam. To prevent the light emitted forwards by the light source creating dazzling by direct observation, a cover is generally provided situated in front of the light source. Part of the light flux is therefore not used for the lighting beam, which does not prevent satisfying the photometry conditions for the light beam in the case of a high-power source.
In its not yet published French patent application No. 04 11 785, filed on 4 Nov. 2004, the applicant discloses a headlight for a motor vehicle of the type giving a beam with cut-off. In this headlight, the cover normally situated in front of the light source is omitted and replaced by a lens which is determined so as to produce the beam with cut-off. The elimination of the cover allows a more complete use of the flux of the source and correspondingly a reduction in the power of the latter.
The reduction in the power of the source in French patent application No. 04 11 785 results in an alleviation of the thermal stresses in the headlight, which makes possible a greater compactness in terms of depth, in particular because of a lesser distance between the source and the lens closing off the headlight.
Although the headlight described in French patent application No. 04 11 785 affords a substantial improvement in the way of lesser bulk, it remains desirable to propose other solutions allowing greater compactness still, in particular in order to facilitate the integration of new functions in headlights such as for example the so-called DRL (“Day Running Light”) daytime lighting faction.